Our Maxed Out Mudroom

I am taking a short break from my series of posts on Beginning Pressure Canning to give you a chance to gather your materials I shared about in Understanding Pressure Canning and to do some trial runs as described in my photo tutorial on The Pressure Canning Process.

During this little break, I'll give you a quick glance around the rest of our mudroom.

When I decided how I wanted to finish off our mudroom, I decided that I wanted it to look like the outside of the house to give the feel that you hadn't quite entered the house.  After all, it was going to house all of our farm gear, which I was assuming would be quite dirty.  I was right. Hence the name mudroom. So please excuse the mud. :)

If you read my post on Managing Mittens in the Mudroom a few weeks ago, you read all about my struggles to organize our children's hats, mittens, and gloves, as well as seeing what I eventually came up with.

Well, the rest of the mudroom has been about as equal as a struggle as the mittens.  We are finally getting to a point where we can function in there though.  I'll walk you around, show what all we have going on in here, and share more than you would probably ever need to know about a person's mudroom

First of all, to gain your orientation, the photo above is directly to your left as you step inside our mudroom. There is a window above the mittens, and if you take a few more steps forward, you will find yourself walking into our house.  We won't go in the house today. If you turn your head from the left to the right, you will see the rest of the room.

Along the outside wall of our mudroom is where I attempt to organize the rest of our farm gear.

Next to the light switch is fun little chicken key holder that my parents found for me on one of their flea market excursions.  It not just holds our keys, but it also is a handy spot for Ethan's headlamp, which gets used quite often considering many of his chores are done during the dark hours of the day, when he isn't in the office or at the other farm he works for.  The wind chime partially shown above was a wedding present from Ethan's grandma and gently chimes when a summer breeze blows through the mudroom window.

Hanging on a nail in the wall beside this, is our electric fence remote, quick to grab and handy to use!

You will also notice across the top of the area shown is an array of Amish style farm hats.  My parents live by an Amish settlement, and when we were dreaming of farming, I bought the family some of these for Christmas.  My parents have picked up more sizes since we moved to the farm so the kids would have shade to wear on our treeless (shadeless) hill. 

Also, hanging on the wall are mostly Ethan and my farm coats. Yes, we have a lot of them. Just like you have the right shoes for the right occasions, we have the right farm coats for the right occasions. When you are out doing chores or working on a project for an extended amount of time, you want to be dressed right, especially in the winter.  Not too cold, but not overheating.  Thankfully, many of these coats get put away when the summer warms up.

Under the coats is my shoe shelving. Like my mittens, in another moment of mudroom desperation, I constructed our shelving by again wandering around to see what I could find. I ended up grabbing two empty milk crates and a couple loose boards to set across the top.  This year, as little feet have gotten bigger, I decided that I needed another level.  I was able to find one more board, as well as some bricks.

Ethan and my shoes and boots go underneath, and the kids' shoes go on the shelves. Like the gloves, my kids have learned that they need to be responsible for their shoes as I remind them that not picking them up is like telling me I need to.  As you can see, most of the shoes are fairly well matched. It's not beautiful, but it does the job.  I'm thinking that one of these years, as soon as I finally get everything situated to where I want it, I might ask my dad, who builds custom furniture, to build for me the shoe shelf that I have drawn up in my head.

Past our shoes and coats is a wooden locker that I picked up for free when our town's head start was moving.  My mother-in-law helped me paint it, and after hanging hooks inside, it became our kids' storage area. This is where they hang their farm coats and snow pants, as well as where they keep their boots.  We used to keep the gloves and hats in the little cubby above, which was disastrous.  Now that area is used to keep sunglasses, the tool belts that I made for them, and any other extras that need a place.

On the far end of the locker, on the far, far side of the mudroom, is a hook to hang (hide) our farm coveralls.

On top of this unit, from the far right to left, is a basket for Ethan and my gloves and hats, a tool carrier for tools Ethan wants to have handy, another basket for farm outdoor odds and ends, and also a tool carrier for myself.  This tool carrier got put on my Christmas list this past year after trying to hunt down Ethan's tools for projects that I try to work on when he is gone or for home repairs that I attempt - every farm wife needs one of these! (Plus, her own tools!)

Now to the opposite side of the mudroom.

Right as you walk in, you have a mudroom sink that greets you, calling you to wash off all of the farm dirt that was acquired outside. This is also the sink I use to wash up our chicken eggs, and the cabinet underneath makes a great spot to store egg cartons.

Above the sink is a medicine cabinet I recently installed where I keep things like band-aids, sunscreen, and bug deterrent, and hanging on the wall beside the sink is a rooster towel holder, gifted to me one Christmas from Ethan.

Above the towel holder is our little egg basket that I bought Ethan when we still lived in town and were wanting to add some chickens in our backyard.  Although this little basket doesn't quite do the job anymore, it's a great egg basket for small helpers who tag along.

Underneath the towel holder is our ash bucket which I shared about in my post  A Glimpse Around Our Woodstove.  This ash bucket can get quite hot when first filled, which is why it gets set on our cement floor, painted brown to add to the barn-like effect of the room and to try and help hide the dirt - a near impossible task in this room.

Next to the sink is our family freezer.  I was very excited this year to get a freezer back for our family's use since every year prior our freezers have all been used for our business.  Actually, I was excited to get our mudroom back as well. Before we finished our freezer room, which now holds 6 business freezers and our market supplies, our mudroom was the central location for our farmer's market business.  The two freezers, towers of coolers, and marketing paraphernalia did not help the sanity level in the mudroom one bit!
 
Past our home freezer we now have 2 incubators and a hatcher.  I'm thinking these might get a stand built for them so that they can be stacked three high (we have 10 foot ceilings), since we are also wanting to add an egg refrigerator to this room this spring.

For now, we have our egg hatching cabinets in two locations, and atop one of our incubators you will find our real egg collecting baskets, a watering can, and Ethan's batteries for his power drills. The space that will be consumed by the egg fridge makes a handy spot for Ethan's chain saws, used frequently to cut wood for our wood stove.  *Sigh*  I guess we'll need to find a new spot for them . . .

If you were observant, you may have noticed from the photo showing the whole wall of coats and from the photo showing the stack of incubators, there is a curtain along the back wall.  I'm not allowed to tell you what is behind the curtain.  Just kidding.  Actually, there is a small mess behind the curtain.  Stacks of tubs, a coat bar for hanging coats we don't want farm filth on, and an area that will hopefully soon be transformed into shelving for my overflow of canned goods that are now stacked in my hallway. Some day I hope to replace the curtain with some sliding closet doors resembling barn doors . . .  Someday. 

Here is the view from the back end of our mudroom. Because we have 10 foot ceilings, we had to join the wall boards to reach to the ceiling.  The white trim covers the joint, and above the trim I display fun farmy things.  On the left wall are some old traps and a cool seed bag from some open pollinated corn we experimented with one year.  Continuing around is a wall hanging from a foreign exchange student who was in our youth group which depicts a farm in her country, along with a wall hanging of an African Guinea Fowl coincidentally given to the year we got guineas by my Uncle who is a missionary in Zimbabwe. A bit lower, beside the window, you will find Ethan's snow shoes and a pig wall hanging he gifted me one Christmas. And up high again, along the right wall, is a rooster clock positioned to check the time by a quick peek inside the door, two lanterns that we have used for school when our power went out, and a rug beater that is no longer solid enough to beat my rugs but is still pretty.

Like I said, this is probably more than you ever wanted to know about someone's mudroom.  I'd love to hear anyone's tips or tricks they might have to offer since it is still a work in progress. As hard as it is to function within it though, I can't even imagine trying to be able to function without it!

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm. 

Tools of My Trade

 

This tool carrier is the one I ordered with my Christmas/Birthday gift money.  I had been eying Ethan's over the last year as I realized how helpful it would be for me to keep my house and garden tools handy.  It has a generous amount of pockets, and it even has a little box that fits underneath to hold nails, photo hooks, or whatever else I want to store for my building/household projects.  I just wish I would have gotten one sooner!
I do have to admit that although I thought Ethan's headlamp, similar to this one, was a little silly when we first started the farm, I use it quite often too now.  When I'm out in the dark, by myself, trying to get something done as quick as I can to get back inside (yeah, I'm wimpy in that I prefer not to be out in the dark by myself), I appreciate not only light but also 2 hands to work with.

Managing Mittens in the Mudroom

When we built our house, I was adamant that we have a mudroom.  I did NOT want to deal with the mess of farm dirt being tracked throughout the house so I very strategically planned our mudroom and house entry: a spacious room where the farm clothes could be left, a sink to wash in before entering the house, the bathroom just a step in from the mudroom (for those times when you do need to take a step inside), and the laundry room connected to the bathroom to rid ourselves of the last of the farm dirt on ourselves and our clothes before calling it a day.

There is not much that I would change about this set up.  Still, challenges have abounded in the mud room, and they have grown as our family and farm has grown.

Not only do we have farm boots, farm coats, farm bibs, farm hats, and farm gloves . . . and duplicates of all of those for the different seasons, but we also still have our regular outdoor attire that we prefer not to get far dirt on: town shoes, town coats, snow pants, town hats, and town gloves.

If that wasn't enough, the mudroom also houses tools, equipment, incubators, storage tubs, our home freezer, and soon to be added - storage for the overflow of our home canned goods and a refrigerator to hold more eggs.

Organizing all of this has been quite the task.  Functioning in the mudroom, as we are still in the works of getting it completely set up, has been an even bigger task - especially in the winter when the plethora of hats, gloves, and mittens increases.

After the continuous challenge of finding matching gloves for the kids as well as hats to wear when we were needing to head out the door (and then the gloves, hats, and mittens that constantly littered the floor so that you had to search for your next place to step), I put together an organizing system that I could not do without now.

Last year, in a very desperate moment when my mudroom patience had disappeared, I raided my desk drawer and pulled out some clips, grabbed the nearest used farm twine that I could find (which wasn't that hard to find), knotted the clips on to the twine, pounded some nails into the wall, and hung my glove organizers up.

Since that day, I have replaced my nails with cute white hooks and have replaced the mudroom chaos of hats and gloves with a little more "Mommy calm". 

The kids each have their own little hook under our window now, where they hang their scarf and can clip on their mittens, hats, and work gloves.  When summer comes, the winter gloves will be switched for gardening and summer work gloves, and the hook will be used to hang their favorite outdoor cap. (As you can see, there are two extra hooks that right now are being used for our spotlight and the explorer bags that I made for the kids - both of which get used quiet a bit.)

Each child is responsible for hanging up their own hats and gloves (although the younger two do get some help).  With gentle reminders that leaving gloves on the floor is like telling me I should take care of their messes, they usually do a pretty good job of keeping things together now.

This little system was so simple to throw together, and it is so simple for the kids to use. Not only that, but I have found their hats and gloves dry quicker too.

Like I said, we are still in the process of getting our mudroom set up, but we are slowly getting there. Stay tuned, and I'll show you how I manage the rest of the our mudroom, and feel free to offer any suggestions!



Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

Tools of My Trade

These are the type of clips that I knotted onto my twine. They are a little tricky for my 5 yr old to do, but he is getting there. You can also find them in different colors to tie on to different colored ribbons, matching your decor.

A Wood Stove is Good For . . .

1When we built our house we decided not to put a furnace in. Without a furnace, we wouldn't need to put in duct work (we don't have central air either) which would save money with building expenses.  Heating with wood would also save quite a bit on heating bills.

The stove is the black square in the middle.

So we did our research and purchased a wood burning stove.  It sits right in the middle of the house to help the heat be evenly distributed.  We also have ceiling fans in the living room, kitchen, and 3 bedrooms to help move heat around as well.

Our stove does a great job heating the house.  In fact, I am usually cold when I go visit other people's houses in the winter.

We have found that the wood stove is good for many other things though, especially when you live on a farm.  Here are just a few:

During the day it is clear in front of the stove - at night we put it to full use!

• hanging clothes on a rack close by overnight to not have to use the dryer
• thawing frozen hoses (see Ethan's blog)
• thawing frozen food when placed in a pan on top
• raising bread when placed on a rack on the "cooler" level on top
• warming baby pigs born in the winter whose momma didn't take to them right away (the momma is not going to stay, by the way)
• a cozy spot for a sleeping baby in a swing
• stimulation for a baby who is awake (both of my farm babies have enjoyed the flicker of the fire and the contrast of the stove pipe going up to the ceiling)
• a chance for young ones to have responsibilities - helping with the wood pile
• a chance for some exercise - collecting and splitting the wood 
• a place to hang and dry wet coveralls
• a place to unwind in front of
• a place to roast marshmellows for winter Smores.  (I haven't done this yet, but I do think about it!)

Like I said, those are just a few.

Although there are times when a furnace would be nice (when we are gone, have other things to attend to besides wood, or the coldest of nights when it should have a refill), we are quite happy with our wood burning stove.  After all, can you make a list like that with a furnace?

House Construction and Demolition

If you have read my to do lists, you might have noticed that there were 2 water issues on the list. One was installing our mudroom sink, and the other was to replace and seal up some tile around the bath tub.

I don't know if many people know this about me, but when I get something in my mind to do, there is not much that can stop me. Sometimes it is a good trait. Usually it isn't. Mainly because when these "things to do" pop into my mind, I don't think to take much time to think about what all it entails. (Hmmmm . . . kind of like starting a farm with a young and growing family on a completely bare piece of land. At least this one wasn't all my idea!)

So about 3 weeks ago I looked at our bathroom floor tile and noticed that two of the pieces looked a little lose close to the tub where the wall tiles that needed replacing were. These tiles should be stuck down pretty firmly, but these two were not. So I pulled up a corner and yup, they were damp underneath. I could have done two things.

1) Push them back down and decide to fix them when I fix the tile, leaving our bathroom looking nice and the shower working perfectly.

2) Rip them up, along with multiple other tiles that I would find to be wet. Find the reason that the wall tiles and floor tiles are wet is because water is getting behind the shower tiles and running down the wall. Decide to investigate the faucet. Break the shower knob on the faucet. End up with a torn up bathroom floor and no showers, just baths, for everyone (including 6 months pregnant me) for over 2 weeks.

I picked option number 2.I do have to admit that I was pretty upset with my choice of options that I had picked that first night. (Although the kids were quite happy with the prospect of baths instead of showers for awhile.) It turns out that what I call one of my "things to do" rampages turned out okay this time.

I pulled out my faucet paper work (yeah, I organize funny stuff), called the company, and they sent me a new faucet - no questions asked, and the shower is once again working. I found out the real reason for the tiles coming off (which I thought was just from wet wash clothes being draped over the tub and dripping down - then soaking upward since I missed a spot caulking), and now I won't go through the trouble of fixing them only to fix them again, and the floor, later.

Since our broken faucet was limed up and we couldn't get it off, a friend from church who is a plumber was kind enough to come out and help. While he was here, he also hooked up our sink in the mud room. So now not only will our bathroom stay cleaner and free of filthy farm hands (adults and kids), I also don't have to wash eggs in the kitchen sink (ie - clear out dirty dishes, clear dishes drying, wash eggs, sanitize sink, put dirty and the clean/drying dishes rack back in sink. uh - I mean put clean/drying dishes away. Yeah . . . That's what I do.)So even though I still have some floor tiles, wall tiles, and also some trim to replace, I do have to say this rampage worked out quite well!

To Do Lists

A while back I made a house construction to do list and an outside to do list and am trying to keep things highlighted as I check them off. I am keeping a link at the top of the blog to these lists to remember to keep checking things off, and for those interested - you can peek on my progress too.

House Construction Update

*Pictures eventually. They have to be loaded and sent from another computer. Can't wait to have a camera again!)

We have been living in our house about 20 months now. It's pretty easy to remember since Isaac was born a month after we moved in. (It's also easy to remember how long we have lived in Knoxville, since Caleb was 6 weeks old when we moved.)

Since I'm doing a blogging spurt and don't know how long until I will do another one, I thought I would give a quick update as to where we are at with the house construction.

We have gotten a few things done since the new year, mostly in the last couple weeks.
* At the beginning of the year I hung the shelving units in our laundry room to help put away tubs and find room Christmas presents. (Only a small pile left in our room of things that don't have a spot yet - can't wait until it's gone!)
* I got tired of tripping over a transition strip that was never really fastened between the bathroom and hallway. I ripped it off and glued it down with liquid nails about 2-3 weeks ago. It took a good week to dry, with weights on to hold it down, because of the high humidity in the house.
* We still hadn't gotten the air conditioner in, and due to the high humidity and heat this spring, it was becoming quite musty smelling in our house - clothes and all. My dad came down last week and he and Ethan spent a day installing the air conditioner. Just in time for more heat and humidity with all of our storms!
* Ethan wired the electric for the air conditioner so we could turn it on. Very important!
* While my dad was here he rehung a kitchen cabinet that had detached from the wall a few weeks prior. He is a woodwork and even made his own cabinets for his house. He had a lot to say about how even "good quality" purchased cabinets are made. :) By the way - you can check out some of his work and items for sale on his Tom Kies Woodworks site.
* While the guys were working on the air conditioner, I finished up the edging on the deck while my dad cut the boards to size.
* I hung guest towel hangers in the bathroom and rehung with bigger wall anchors the hand towel hanger that had been pulled out of the wall by the kids. (I also moved it so it was easier to reach!)

Those were all projects that I am so thankful to have done. They were all either big annoyances or bigger discomforts.

We still have quite a bit to do yet, although some of them are not really that big of an annoyance, they will be nice to just have done.

Inside the house construction:
* We need to put trim around the air conditioner and custom make an outlet cover.
* Our dryer needs to be vented outside. It is nice to have the extra heat and humidity in the winter, but not in the summer.
* The fire alarms need to be wired in and wired together. We have an alarm in the attic by the stove pipe that will sound an alarm in the house. We do have battery alarms right now though.
* The mud room sink needs to be hooked up to plumbing. This will be nice to keep dirt out of the bathroom and off the bathroom towels. It will also be a lot easier to wash eggs - I won't have to use the kitchen sink. (Fall 2010)
* The mud room ceiling light fixture needs to be hung.
* There is a mud room outlet that needs to be installed and hooked up to the breaker box.
* The mud room window trim needs to be painted.
* The telephone jacks need to be wired in and hooked up. (Since we don't have a land line, this is one of those things that gets overlooked easily!)
* Touch up painting needs to be done. We had great help on painting day before we moved in, but it went later into the evening when light was scare so there are quite a few missed spots.
* There are some switches that were switched when wired that need to be switched back to reduce walks across the room.
* I need to redo a few tiles on the wall around the base of the tub. ** Actually, now I found out I need to redo the flooring, trim around the tub area, some plumbing, and even more tiles. A piece was left off or out of the package that prevents water from getting behind the tile and we now have a mess!
* We need to construct a movable heat barrier to put between the desk and the wood stove for the winter. (We have a make shift one now that balances on a wire basket and tips frequently when bumped.)
* Blinds need to be hung and/or curtains need to be made or bought. (I will admit that we have some bath towels and blankets that serve as curtains.)
* Springing doorstops need to be attached to walls.
* Door handles need to be put on closet doors.
* The nail holes in the trim need to be filled.
* The rust on our wood stove needs to be sanded off and it needs to be repainted. (Too much humidity.)
* And not really construction, but I would like to do a bit more decorating and hanging up of family photos.

Outside the house construction:
* To go along with the dryer vent, I need a clothesline outside. I don't dry much in the dryer, but hang drying it inside still adds the humidity even if you don't get the heat. I've tried drying on racks outside, but they either get blown over or the clothes get filled with bugs that will then be brought in the house.
* The pallet in front of our mud room door needs to be removed and replaces with a real step or entrance.
* The outdoor house lights work but the fixtures need some bolt cutter action to make them hang right.
* The outdoor house outlets need to be wired in.
* The door bells need to be installed and hooked up both inside and out.
* River rock needs to be brought in to make the walkway from our drive to our house - now we just have mud and feed sacks if you don't walk on the lawn. (PLEASE feel free to walk on our lawn if you visit!!!)
* The porch overhang needs to have a roof underneath to finish it off and keep birds from nesting under it.
* We need to trench around 2/3 of the house yet to install the foam frost barrier.
* We need to spray foam under the house between the cement and 2x6 boards, as well as spray foam around the air conditioner we just installed.
* We need to put a rock border around the house to keep the chickens from scratching to and eating the frost barrier foam.
* Gutters need to be installed.

House shed construction:
* It needs to be cleaned out of construction materials and reorganized so it is more functional than storage.
* Lots and lots of shelves and hooks need to be put up once cleaned out. :)
* It needs to be wired
* We want to make a freezer room on the far end of it since we will have a hard time moving forward in sales with our current freezer. (It only holds 2 hogs or 1 beef. I am having to turn over my home freezer - it had been inspected too - to hold more, and we still have serious space issues!)

I'm sure I forgot some things, but that is what comes to mind right now. Don't even get me started on the list of things to do outside/farm wise yet - it is much, much longer and more time consuming! I so want to be set up and settled in all around, but you can only chip away at things so fast. As overwhelming as all of the work seems yet, I do have to remember that this property was just sod and prairie grass with some old overgrown fence line to rip out when we bought it in 2008. Also, I'm sure you all have fix it and to do lists just as long. :)

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

Our New Storm Shelter

You know when you are cleaning the house and you have something that really doesn't fit anywhere so it is continuously shuffled around but always in the way?

Well, our storm shelter project has kind of been like that through this whole building process. It is something that is extremely important to have in Iowa. We had lots of options of things to do, various places we thought about putting it (both underground and above ground - inside and outside), and just as big of a range of price options. So we talked about it with contractors and family, kicked ideas around, made decisions and changed our minds, and avoided the final decision as long as possible.

Well, spring is here and with that was coming nightmares of tornadoes and nowhere to take the kids. So it was time to make a decision.

First we decided to not have it in the mudroom - first of all because we didn't want to give up the space and secondly because we wanted it underground.

Next came the decision of what to put underground. There were 3 choices.

Option A - Build one ourselves with my dad's volunteered help. This was very generous of my dad, but with Ethan's schedule we ruled it out since we didn't want to make him build it by himself.

Option B - A 6X8 rectangular precast concrete shelter with a metal door and seats. This one didn't call for a drain or sand underneath, and it was ready to go once installed.

Option C - A 6 foot wide, 6 1/2 foot long cylinder out of precast concrete with no doors and no seats. This one needed to have a PVC drain run and sand underneath. We would have to build 2 doors and get wood for seats. We can also get wood for shelves and it can double as a root cellar. This one installed was two-thirds the price of Option B, even with the sand and drain.

We went with Option C - the cylinder. I affectionately call it our glorified septic tank. It WAS made by a septic tank casting business.

Next was where to put it. To make a long story short, 5 minutes before it was dug in we picked our spot. We chose to put it at the end of the porch instead of behind the house by the mudroom door because of where we want our shed and winter cattle area.

So our storm shelter is in. We were happy to see that it didn't get water - even after getting 3 inches of rain with storms that passed through this weekend. We now have some doors to make and landscaping to do, but I'm glad this decision is done!

 

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

Whirlwind Construction

Last weekend Ethan and I had made some plans for the upcoming week, but instead we got caught up in a whirlwind of construction. To make a long story short, our house loan was sold and the new bank doesn't want us living in the house during construction. This led to a phone call last Monday saying that we need to have the house done by the end of the month. Keep in mind that we were supposed to have until mid summer to get completed.

Thankfully, my dad had retired at the end of February and had just spent 4 days helping us trim. If we wouldn't have had this done there would have been no way we could get done. And thankfully, my dad is still retired and my parents were able to come again for a few days!

We were able to get quite a bit done with their help. Our mudroom went from completely unfinished to wired, painted and trimmed. I learned how to tile and should have the last wall of the tub/shower done soon. (We need a few more edging tiles.) The last few bits of trim were put up in the house, and some other odd jobs were done as well.

Now that all of the construction is just about complete, I will hopefully get settled in a bit more. I'm planning to do a photo tour when all the boxes are put away. Until then, here's a little sneak peak of the mudroom. We planned it to look like the outside of our house for 3 reasons: 1- So that it doesn't seem like you are officially in the house since it is going to get dirty often with mud and chore clothes. 2- The "rustic red" walls will help hide the dirt that accumulates on mud room walls. 3- We thought it would look cool. :)

Forward Progress

The last few days we have been making progress all across the board. All three of my kids are getting better. Isaac ended up with RSV (which is what the other two probably had), but he got to stay home since his oxygen counts were good. It is nice to have them feeling better now.

My parents have been here since Thursday helping with the house. By the end of today all of the floors should be laid, the upper closet doors on, and the trim around the house in place. Things are really looking nice.

Also, when my parents were on their way here they picked up a washing machine I had located on their route through. For $75 dollars I now have a Whirlpool washing machine with the same drum size and settings as my old one. We picked up a hose clamp, and today I am able to do laundry again!

Construction News

I think it's about time for a house update, so here it is. :)

We haven't been able to work on the house as much as we had planned this winter due to a number of things, but we are still making progress. Right after Thanksgiving we finished laying the last 7ish feet of flooring in the kitchen and living room. It was nice to not have our Christmas tree on cement. We also finished laying the hallway, except for the edge by the wall. As you can see, the hallway makes a great bowling alley!

After the New Year, I was able to work on a bit more.
- I cleared the laundry room of construction stuff and it now has bars to hang clothes. I was getting tired of drying racks strewn all over the house and couldn't dry clothes fast enough to keep up with the laundry. (I don't use the dryer for clothes if I can help it.) Now I can keep the hampers under control and dry all of our clothes in the laundry room.

-Ethan finished wiring the laundry and bath outlets. No more extension cords running through the hall to the washing machine!

-I cleaned out and organized our mudroom so we can walk to the back. We now have a place for our indoor wood pile against a wall. It was just being dropped inside the door since the walls were all taken. I also insulated a section of the wall between the mudroom and the bathroom to keep pipes from freezing and so cold air couldn't come in under the tub, which made for a VERY cold bathroom. (The mudroom is insulated, but it is shut off from the house so it gets quite cold.)

-Ethan and I cleaned up and cleared up the shed attached to the house so two calves could stay in there this past week. (Yes, we now have cattle on the other side of our living room wall and behind a bedroom closet. It keeps things interesting.) To do this, we carried over a deep freeze and set it up in the mudroom which just happened to have been organized a few days before. (We needed to get the deep freeze over anyway since we will soon be filling it with pork.)

-I moved the mountain of boxes that were on the side wall of Isaac's room to the back wall of his room. We can now lay flooring 3/4 of the way into his room.

- Pictures and shelves have been hung up in the living room and kitchen.

And this weekend while Ethan was away again I put the globes on our light fixtures, rearranged boxes in the hall pantry and hung the last 3 closet doors for the pantry, and I hung curtains (just temporary until trim goes up).

We do still have a bit to do, but it's coming step by step.

All Toasty Inside

Over the weekend my parents came down for a couple of days to help us get the final winterizing done on our house. Ethan and my dad put in quite a bit of work and got the mudroom insulated, the stove and stove pipe hooked up, and the storm door on. I was hoping to have these things done before the baby arrived, and I was relieved to make it through the weekend so that Ethan could help out.

Yesterday Ethan went down to the woods and brought back a wagon full of wood so we were able to fire up the stove. I had planned on doing some organizing in the house, but I couldn't help myself and laid in front of the stove for well over an hour enjoying the heat. Even though we had our electric heat going, which kept the temperature at a comfortable level, it is a different type of heat. Wood heat just seems to sink in straight to your bones.

As far as when the baby is coming, I am a bit overdue now compared to when Caleb and Hannah came. Compared to my due date though, I am fine. So now I am just relaxing and enjoying our warm house.

Settling In

Right now our house is functional, although there are still quite a few boxes laying around in piles. Part of the reason is that I am more concerned about obeying my lifting restriction through the last part of the pregnancy than I am the piles of boxes. Also, in order to put more boxes away, we need to do more construction (shelves and storage areas). And in order to do more construction, we have to put boxes away. What will probably end up happening is that we will just shuffle piles of boxes for awhile while we work.

Yesterday, however, we were able to permanently unpack one mountain of boxes in the bathroom. We were needing a cabinet for our bathroom to hold closet things, and we found one on Craig's list. It is exactly what I had wanted, and the family was kind enough to hold it for us for a couple of weeks until we could fit it in our schedule to pick it up. Even though we still have a little work to do in the bathroom, it is nice to walk in and see it without stacks of boxes.

Hold On to Your Hat - And Your Chickens

Last night, or early morning (whatever you want to say), Ethan and I were woken up to our NOAA weather radio's alert alarm. The warning - high winds for the upcoming day. Okay. We went back to bed.

In the morning, all was still calm. Off to church we went. By the time church had gotten out though, we understood what the alert was all about.

We were in sustained 30 mile an hour winds with gusts up to 60 miles an hour. On the way home from church a dumpster blew across the road right in front of us. And that was in town.

Now, about our property. Our farm is on a hill. And we built our house on top of that hill. And there are no trees on top of that hill. Just our barn/house.

We are experiencing every bit of those 60 mile an hour gusts. I was relieved to pull up to our drive and see the house still intact. :)

Although, not everything up here has faired as well as our house.

Do you remember our chicken coop?

We thought we over built it. It is a movable coop, however I could barely manage to scoot it to its next spot on my own. Ethan could a bit better, but when it came time to move it any large distance, he would get my help.
So here are the nest boxes, the feeder, and the waterer. But where's the coop?
Oh . . . Here it is. A good 50 feet from where it should be. Lucky for the chickens, they weren't inside. Lucky for us, it decided to obey the road sign.
The same gust that blew away the coop also blew open our sliding door on the end of our building. Thankfully it didn't rip it off. Ethan is working right now to secure it a bit more.

The chickens, however, are going to have to fend for themselves for awhile. With winter coming, and a baby in a couple of weeks, they are pretty low on the priority list. Among other things we still have to install our wood burning stove, insulate our mudroom, take our pigs to market, and prepare the property for the cows to arrive.

So hopefully all of those coyotes that howl at night don't notice the flattened chicken coop that is in the ditch.

Attack of the Centipedes

We have now been officially staying in our house for over a week. Although we haven't had much time to settle in (we have been slowly emptying out the "town house" over the last week), I do have the kitchen all put together. The cabinets are filled, the appliances are up and running, and it is the one room that is void of mountains of boxes - a few hills of them, but no mountains.

Now that the majority of the in and out of construction and moving is done with, we can start keeping the doors shut. Because of this, our house is slowly emptying of the little critters that have come in - thankfully none with less than 6 legs! At night Ethan becomes the great fly hunter and vacuums up all of the flies he can find that have gone to sleep on the ceiling. During the day, I keep my eye open for things I can sweep up as well. We had quite a few large, ugly wolf spiders move in before all of the walls were up, and I think I have gotten the majority of those.

The one pest that we just haven't won the battle with yet is the centipede. These little annoyances continue to surface throughout the house. Some days I wouldn't be surprised if we swept up over 50 of them. At first I thought that they were just coming out of construction hiding like the wolf spiders, but upon further investigation it was determined that they are actually coming into the house.

I'm not that worried though. I have seen where they are coming in at, and it is where construction hasn't been completed. We still have some foaming and caulking to do around the doors - you can actually see outside through where the door jams meet the walls in the mud room. There are also a few other spots that will get foam and caulk too to help seal things up. (We did caulk around the entire floor before walls went up, so I know that is sealed well.)

Thankfully, these are the one pest that I can put up with for awhile since foaming and caulking the tiny cracks are low on the priority list right now. (It will probably get done in the next week or two.) These little guys are slow, they stay on the floor, and the kids love to hunt for them and sweep them up. The only thing I could do without, besides them of course, is the crunch they make when they are accidentally stepped on.

Tonight I Sat in My Head

Tonight, while Ethan was at meetings, I unpacked a bit and then just sat. As I was staring into the kitchen, the weirdest feeling came. It was like I was sitting in my head . . . and in my computer . . . and in my file box.

Since February this whole project has not only consumed my mind, but is has been continuously passing through my thoughts, being drawn up on the computer, and shuffled through the file box. And tonight I was sitting right in the middle of it all, seeing it with my eyes. Very strange.

I do have to say, even with the flooring not completed, trim needing to go on, and boxes all over the place - it is exactly what I had envisioned. It is actually even better. When I look around, not only do I see what was in my head, but I also see the generosity and love of so many people who have helped out.

Sweet Potatoes and Another New Closing Date

If you are trying to figure out what sweet potatoes and new closing dates have in common, you might be thinking awhile because there isn't much besides the fact that they are sharing this post.

First off, we just found out today that our new closing date, which was supposed to be tomorrow, is not going to happen. Closing will now be at the end of the week at the earliest . . . maybe . . . Even so, we are still moving out completely. My due date is getting close, and we don't want to be in limbo anymore. Hopefully things will get finalized soon.

Next up, sweet potatoes. I was reminded by Lindsie's post at This Abode that I should probably give another update. Yesterday I took a look at my plants but didn't get around to digging them. If you are wondering when you should dig yours, 100-140 days after planting them is recommended. Although, you will want to get them out before the first hard frost since it could damage the roots (which are the sweet potatoes). If you would like more information about how to harvest them and prep them for storage, you can check out this site.

Oh, and just in case you want to do some experimenting, I am going to try and root a cutting off of my plant and bring it in the house. I heard they make neat house plants. But the reason I'm doing this is to try and skip the rooting process by using cuts off of a house plant instead. (I'll still root some next year just in case!)

Moving Day . . . Again

Today is our new moving day, and it looks like this one is holding. We are going to be moving furniture and then boxes today. We have until Tuesday to be all moved out, so what doesn't get done today, we will pick up the next few days.

With that said, I might be a stranger for the next few weeks. I hope to keep posting, but with the baby coming soon (my due date is mid November, but both Caleb and Hannah were early), I might just take a bit to rest up and recover after the move. Although, sitting and typing has been one of my most restful activities the last few months. So maybe there will be lots of posts before the baby comes! If not, picture me sitting outside under our porch watching Caleb and Hannah play on the farm. :)

Progress and Pictures

We are continuing to make progress at our house, and we are knocking off projects that will be good to have done before we move all the boxes and furniture in. We were actually going to start staying out there last night, but the rain from Monday night made the roads (and trailer) a little too wet and messy to want to move our mattresses.

We do hope to start slowly moving things over now. We have planned on Saturday being the big moving day, where we will take the majority of our things over that are still here in town. We have until Tuesday to move out though, so we will use the last couple of days to grab anything that we didn't get Saturday.

Here are some pictures:Our bedroom floor is completely laid.
The kitchen counter tops are in.
Outlets and fixtures are being put together.

After Ethan gets done at work today, we plan on starting to lay the floor in the kids' bedroom. We are also going to hook up some more outlets and fixtures, and maybe scoot the kitchen appliances in place. (If someone else comes out - I can't be of much help with that right now.)

Some of the other things left to do (but things that we will probably work on after we move) are laying the floor in the baby's room, finishing up the floor in the main living area (we are very close to being done with that), base and window trim, doors and trim on the upper closet storage, tiling for the shower walls, and finishing the mudroom and storage area. It sounds like a lot, but it will be much easier to work over there when we are living there - especially in the evenings after the kids's bedtime.

More Floor

The last couple days we have been laying floor as we get the chance. It is coming along well. Slow, but well.

Last night we also had our first camp out at the farm! It was nice to put the kids to bed while we worked past bedtime, and it was nice to wake up in our new house. :)

Bowling Alley in the Living Room

We just worked until noon today, but we got the bowling alley laid out in the living room. At least, that's what Ethan said it looked like.

As you can see, we started laying our floor. We are using stick down planks from Menards. We had originally planned on using a glueless vinyl that resembled hardwood floor until we found these. They are quite a bit heavier and won't indent with heavy furniture like the vinyl would. Also, if you get a tear in your vinyl (which has actually happened a few places in the parsonage we are in now with the same brand of floor and it only being 4 years old), you pretty much have to live with it or replace your whole floor. With these, you can pop out the damaged one and replace it with a new one, although they come with a lifetime guarantee for residential use.

From what we have laid down so far, we are very happy with it. It looks really nice and seems like it will hold up quite well. It will be nice with the wood burning stove and with living on the farm to not have carpet. (We will have some area rugs.) They were also a great price when I bought them in February, although they now cost over 1/3 more than I paid for them with the rise in material costs.

This week we plan on continuing to lay the floor. Once it is down in the bedrooms, we will probably start moving stuff over. I'm trying to convince Ethan to just take the pack and play for Hannah, a cushion and sleeping bag for Caleb, and air mattress for us out on Monday and we can just start camping there. We'd come back in the mornings to clean up and go back out after Ethan is done with work. We can then put the kids down for bed and continue to work - and be able to sleep in our new home. After all, we do have a bathroom now! We'll see though . . .